By Leighah Beausoleil
Editor-in-Chief
FSU junior Rese Treyvon “Tyrese” Lee, 21, died of injuries sustained in a car accident June 11.
Lorretta Holloway, vice president of academic enhancement, sent an email June 15 informing the FSU community of Tyrese’s passing.
Tyrese was born in Springfield on March 11, 2001.
He was a business management major with a minor in sports management.
“He would always joke around about becoming an athletic director with the athletic director here, who is also the head football coach,” said Cully Curran, a senior management major.
Tyrese had a love for sports and was an athlete himself both in high school and at Missouri Valley College, where he received his associate’s degree before transferring to Framingham State for the Fall 2021 Semester, according to his obituary on the Sampson Family Chapels website.
Curran said he, Tyrese, and their friends would all play non-competitive sports together such as pick-up basketball, and watch sports games, including the times they would go to Boston Red Sox games.
“He's the kind of person - he walks into the room and his smile lights up the whole room,” he said. “He would make everyone feel included, like kids that people don't normally talk to - anyone like that. He would make sure he went out of his way to make them feel comfortable.”
He added, “It was pretty cool to see someone do stuff like that.”
Curran said Tyrese had an “infectious personality” that would bring out positive energy in the people around him.
“I just want to keep his memory alive,” Curran added.
Cam Lee, a sophomore business management major, said he and Tyrese grew up together as they were both from the same town and went to the same middle school and high school.
Lee recalls playing basketball with Tyrese and all of their siblings.
He said Tyrese was “the most energetic person ever. Anytime he's around, everybody's happy or in a good mood.”
Lee highlighted how fast Tyrese would make friends with people. “My first time even bringing him around the football team - I play football - brought him along one time, the next day, I see he's chatting with them, too. I was like, ‘You just met them.’”
Joshua Lopez, a sophomore psychology major, said he first met Tyrese when he came to FSU.
“I was really going through it when I first met him,” Lopez said. “I was going through a dark phase, and he took me out of that phase. He gave me my mojo back.
“He helped me without even helping me - just by him being him,” he added.
He said Tyrese’s confidence is what really made him, him. He did not care what people thought and only cared for the people around him.
Lee said Tyrese always knew “how to just mess with somebody in the slightest way just to make them laugh.
“Everybody just loved being around him,” he added.
Joedion Medina, a sophomore business management major, said, “Since the day I met him, it’s always been good vibes. He was one of those guys who had his friends’ backs no matter what.”
Medina recalls the time he, Tyrese, and their friends had a splatterball war.
“We were on the same team and all I can remember is him having so much energy and us just having so much fun and laughing nonstop,” he said. “I remember the day like it was yesterday and it’s one memory I’ll never forget.
“Tyrese will never be forgotten and was loved by many people,” Medina added.
Nick Ashley, a senior communication arts major, said, “My relationship with Rese was real. We met through mutual friends, but he showed me love like we knew each other our whole lives.”
Ashley said the memory that stands out to him were the times they would see each other in the Dining Commons and Tyresse would raise his hands up and with a “big smile” on his face and would say, “Woo!”
“He was a shining star and being around him gave you your own confidence to be a shining star,” he said.
Ashley added, “Rese was the mayor of Framingham State.”
Along with Lee, Adryen Daniels, a junior communication arts major, also attended middle school and high school with Tyrese.
When Tyrese transferred to FSU, he and Daniels were roommates.
“It was like living with my brother, to be honest,” Daniels said. “He's one of my closest friends.
“The energy that he had, he was able to have crowds of people just following him,” he said.
“He made friends super quick, so it was a good vibe on campus with him.”
He added Tyrese was someone who loved to live in the moment.
In 2020, Daniels, Tyrese, and their friends from high school all went to Los Angeles, California together and were able to cross items off of their “bucket lists,” including visiting a place celebrity Pop Smoke was staying at and eating at Rascals, a restaurant.
Business Professor Denise Brown said she had Tyrese in her Organizational Behavior course and presented his certificate of completion during his funeral service.
“That's a core course that they have to take that he really excelled in,” Brown said.
She said in the course, they discussed different types of leaders and described him as a “charismatic leader.
“The way he talked so very softly, but with pull - power,” Brown said.
She said Tyrese was always a “gentleman” who would respectfully address her as “miss.” “I reminisce over his emails now that he sent me,” Brown added.
She said through her time working with him, they had built a relationship and Tyrese would come to her office to talk about everything, including his dedication to his education and his love for sports.
Brown added at the funeral there were multiple large framed photos of Tyrese playing basketball. She described it as walking through the Basketball Hall of Fame.
“I can only imagine all those pictures sitting around in his room,” she said.
Brown recalled how “perfectly braided” Tyrese’s hair always was and the time she had just got hers done. “He was across campus and he was yelling, ‘I like your hair! I really like your hair!’”
She had assigned the students in her class the task of rewriting Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech for the 21st century and read aloud the end of Tyrese’s essay, which she described as “phenomenal.”
“I'm going to try and do better and help change my community around and keep them from the disease of racism. Is the racism problem too big to solve? No. I do think the change must start with us, and it must now. It must start with us.”
According to his Sampson Funeral Chapel obituary, “Tyrese was predeceased by paternal grandparents Willie Lee and Elma Lee. He leaves his parents Omar Lee and Janet Correa of Springfield; two brothers, Davon Lee of Springfield and RayQuan Lee of Kansas City, MO. His beloved niece, Chloe ‘Coco’ Chanel, grandparents, William and Janet Correa, Uncle and Aunt Elton H. Davis and Betty S. Davis of Hartford Ct, Uncle Gregory Earl Lee (Desireé), Uncle, James Earl Horton (Angie), Uncle Christopher Lee, aunt, Elizabeth ‘Tata’ Correa, aunt Jacqueline ‘Jackie’ Correa and niece, Ellani Best, Titi Clara, Godmothers Saida ‘Nina’ David and Maricruz Richardson, sisters, Ashley and Aaliyah David, adoring cousins, Tatiana, Adriana, La-nyia, Jaiden, Trajahn, Tianna, Tierney, Gregory Jr., Monique, Vashon, Jordan, London, Quanda, Quahron, Quinton, Tamara, Avien, Moe, Godbrother and sister, Amanda and Bryan, and many, many other family members and great friends.”